There is a ridiculous amount of content backing up the timeless gameplay of the Advance Wars series. Magnificent.
You wouldn't be too fooled, either. Advance Wars: Dual Strike doesn't really look like a DS game, and in complete honesty this game could just as easily have been done on the GBA. The dual screen mechanics are neat (and in many cases a great way of getting terrain/unit information without clogging up your main screen) but are never something that couldn't have been done by tapping a button and switching views. Still, you can't really fault the game for the most logical use of the second screen.
And once you start playing, you won't care. This version of Advance Wars plays exactly like the others, so if you're coming in from Advance Wars or Advance Wars 2 everything will feel familiar. Where the second game added Neotanks to fill out your arsenal (and that of your enemies, of course) this one expands on that and hands out a number of units of varying usefulness.
First up is a stealth fighter, an air unit capable of attacking air or ground targets as well as cloaking itself like a submarine. It's quite useful for sneak attacks, although the unit itself is extremely frail. Best paired with that fighter is an aircraft carrier, which functions like the cruiser except will transport and refuel aircraft instead of only helicopters. It's also capable of a massively long-range AA assault.
More conventional and also more impressive is the Megatank. The best way to describe it is to call it a battleship on treads (albeit one with only direct-fire capabilities). It is - by far - the most powerful unit in the game, able to inflict enormous damage on pretty much anything. Its caveats are a tiny ammo reserve (3 shots without being resupplied), high deployment cost, and a short movement range. Of course, those are all costs that can be dealth with, given the damage the megatank can take as well as dish out.
The other 'units' are the piperunner, black bomb, and oozium. The piperunner is a long-range (very long range) unit that can only move on pipes, the black bomb hits like a missile silo but can be moved as an aircraft, and the oozium is best left a secret. Suffice to say, once you run across them in the campaign mode you'll either laugh or cry.
The game itself - as mentioned - has remained relatively unchanged. Battles boil down to capturing cities to earn funds, deploying units in order to overcome the various weaknesses of your opponents' units, and then an all-out attack and/or sneak mission where you push an APC or T-copter around to your foe's base and capture it. Where it does differ is with the title's 'Dual Strike' mechanic. On maps with it, you choose two commanding officers instead of one. At the end of each turn you can swap back and forth (ideally you choose COs with abilities that compliment one another), and the delicious burst comes when you fill up both COs power meters and execute the Tag command. It gives both COs a small power boost as well as their own brand of super power, and lets you swap COs without losing your turn - in essense, the Tag ability lets you attack and move units twice in a single turn. Couple that with a CO like Eagle (whose power lets you move vehicles twice in a turn) and you can push three movements of your units before your opponent has a chance to counterattack.
That new addition to the game is quite satisfying, and (like they tell you during the briefing) can easily change the course of a battle. Naturally, moments during the game when your opponent fires off a Tag move will fill you with despair as you watch your own units torn to shreds.
The other 'new' mechanic involves dual screen battles, which in all honesty is barely worth mentioning. Some of the war room maps and some of the career maps take place on two screens - you assign a CO to each, assign AI orders (defend, general, attack, etc) to the top screen as you can't directly control it, and have at it. You are free to send units to the top screen at your discretion, but once that battle is won all the units there will be converted into star power as that CO comes down to join you (or join your foe, in the unlucky event that you lost the top screen battle). They are never essential to winning the main mission, although losing them will certainly make your life more difficult, as your enemy will have access to his tag power and you won't.
As it is an Advance Wars game, the gameplay is addicting as always, the CO selection is diverse (there are a number of new ones, and many returning faces), and there are plenty of maps and unlockables to dive into. Your overall score on each map is added to a stockpile of points that can be spent on whatever you want in the battle map room, from new COs to maps and other bizarre goodies. Each CO can also be allocated a set of skills depending on their level - earning 1000 points with a certain CO will level them up. Hit level 10 and you'll give them full access to every skill as well as an alternate costume. There are dozens of COs, so it would take an awfully long time to level them all up, as well as earn enough credits to purchase everything. No doubt you'll play enough to do this eventually, and once you complete the initial campaign you'll get access to a hard version with slightly modified maps - completing levels there will earn you twice as many credits as normal.
To round out the package (as if it needs anything more) are a number of endurance missions, where you race to complete levels under a timer, with limited deployment funds, or under a set number of turns. There is also a bizarre combat mode that plays like the old multiplayer game Bolo, where you move your units in real-time and fire with the stylus. You only have access to four types of units and have a limited amount of money to buy them, and there are maybe six or seven levels to complete, either by destroying the opposition or parking on their headquarters long enough to capture it. You won't find any long-term enjoyment with the combat mode but it is an amusing diversion.
Finally, the graphics and audio. The sound is great with headphones, tinny as expected through the built-in speakers. The graphics are what you'd expect - sort of. During the overview map and the battle clips, there is a slight 3D effect. Depending on your view of that, the graphics are either tolerable or kind of ugly. That 3D effect shrinks further away units and enlarges closer ones, and the resolution of the DS's screen just can't handle it - the unit graphics become slightly distorted. It doesn't cripple anything, as the graphics are still serviceable, but it doesn't look as clean as the GBA versions did.
In terms of value, though, Advance Wars DS is unbelievable. The campaign itself is a bit on the short side (and easy side) compared to the past games, but the hard mode offers a nice challenge and there are more war room maps than you'll know what to do with right away. Add to that a ton of great unlockables and you'll find reason enough to play Advance Wars DS religiously until they churn out a new one.